34. Malcolmm
Kate goes rigid. Her shoulders are basically touching her ears, and her fists are balled so tight I can see the muscles straining in her arms.
“Yeah.” Benny’s eyes are saucers, darting back and forth between us. “Ask him yourself, Kate.” He reaches for Ellie and pulls her to the dance floor.
I step closer to Kate, who refuses to face me. Stubborn. The lights and music are suffocating, but being near her, I can breathe. I fight the temptation to drag my eyes down the edges of her burnt-orange dress and say, “Go ahead. Ask me.”
Her dark curls hit me across the cheek as she whips around to face me. Her face is set in stone, one eyebrow raised and her lip tucked between her teeth. I follow my impulses and pry her lip free with my thumb, which makes her suck in a breath. Her eyes are filled with a thousand questions as she stares at me, unblinking.
“Where have you been?” She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.
“Is that really what you wanted to ask me?”
“Well, you are supposed to be manning the floor, so yeah!”
I’m confused at her tone, but I’ll roll with it. “I switched with Bill. You know I hate crowds.” I rub the back of my neck, observing her. “Is that alright with you, your majesty?” I eye her, unsure what’s going on in that beautiful head of hers, but I also can’t resist giving her hell when I see the anger twitch in her eyes. She doesn’t say anything, and the auburn tint of her eyes flickers restlessly as they dart all around the gym. Frustration starts to simmer inside me with the silence. Talk to me! I grab her wrist, tracing my thumb across the small divot in the center. Her pulse pounds rapidly. “What is going on with you?”
“Are you in love with me?” Her words are like a strike to my windpipe. I knew what was coming. I should’ve been prepared. But hearing it come from her lips still startles all the air out of my lungs.
“I, um…what?” I release her wrist and feel my anxiety spike. This conversation needs to happen, but my heart might actually stop beating altogether if it happens in the middle of this sweaty sparkle prison.
“Malcolm…” Her voice is soft and tender. “Are you?”
The pounding of the music reverberates in my ears, adding to the headache threatening to break through at the next bass drop. I can’t do this here. Grabbing Kate’s hand, I lead her out of the gym.
“Where are we—”
“Shh, just come on.” I pull her behind me, down the hall and out into the cool summer air. Our shoes pad across the paved parking lot, all the way to steps leading down to the football field. The stadium lights are on, and the smell of fresh-cut grass swirls around us as we land on the fifty-yard line.
“Malcolm”—Kate squeezes my hand—“please answer me.”
I release her and try to take a breath. My nerves move down into my throat and choke me. I have to clear it three times before I can even look at her. She tries to whisper my name, but I hold a hand up. Please wait. I settle myself and take her all in. Her olive skin has a deep richness to it against the orange silk of her dress. Loose, dark curls graze the top of her collarbone. Just one swift motion of my hand and I’d see the beautiful curve of her shoulder perfectly. Those damn curly strands are just a tease. I clench my fists and fight every fiber within me telling me to reach for her.
She crosses her arms, growing more impatient by the second. I don’t blame her. I’m kind of freaking out right now.
“Alright,” I finally say with a long breath. I rub the back of my neck and decide to just lay it all out there. I can’t cling to the hopeful idea of us anymore. She has to know how I truly feel, and I have to know if she feels the same.
“I like your hair.” You’re an idiot. She sighs, raising an eyebrow at the world’s lamest lead in to someone professing their love. “I like your hair, Kate. I like your sparkly shoes. I like your vegan coffee creamer. Things I wouldn’t usually focus on, I do, because they’re a part of you.” I let out a shaky breath and look at the turf, forcing myself to press on. Use your words, Malcolm. “I like watching you coach and support the kids. I like the way you bite your lip when you write on your chalkboard and how fiercely you love your wild family. I like how passionate you are about so many things. I like everything about you, even your obsession with the Jonas Brothers.” She laughs, and I clear my throat. “But somewhere along the way, years ago…years ago, that like became something deeper. Something I can’t shake.” I pause and take a deep breath, feeling my heartbeat thrum erratically in my chest.
She doesn’t move or speak. She just stares at me, hugging herself.
I rub my knuckles across my chest, attempting to ease the ache settling there. “Kate— I, ugh…God, yes. I am in love with you. I have been for a while now.”
The confession feels heavy and thick on my shoulders. I thought I’d feel better by putting it all out there, but Kate’s silence is fizzling that hope like a poorly tended campfire.
“How do you know?” she asks, keeping her eyes pinned on my chest.
“What? How do I—”
“How do you know you’re in love with me, Malcolm? How can you be so sure?” She moves her eyes up to mine, still hugging herself. Her strong posture falters in the silence that follows.
“Well…” I pause. “Clearly, I prefer being by myself.” I gesture to the empty field around us. Kate lets out a small laugh that mixes with the wind whistling around us. “I can think better and work through my issues better when I’m alone. It’s peaceful. And other things aren’t. I just, ugh…I get tired of everything, ya know?”
“I know you do.” Kate suppresses a smile as she bites her lip.
“But I never get tired of you,” I confess.
Kate’s breath hitches, and her arms fall to her sides.
“I never get tired of you, Kate. I’d rather be with you every moment, of every day, all the time, than have a moment alone to myself. That’s how I know I’m in love with you.”
She’s silent again.
At this point, I could really use a lightning strike to the head to get me out of this. Why isn’t she saying anything? Maybe I can just leave, walk right back up those steps and back inside. The blaring noise and perspiring adolescents might actually be more fun than this.
“Look, I—”
“How— Ugh,” she cuts me off, pinching the bridge of her nose and taking a deep breath. “How do you not remember our kiss?”
“Kiss?” Vague memories of kissing Kate have been piecing themselves together in my brain, but I wasn’t sure if it was real or a dream. I’ve had too many dreams like that to know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. “We kissed?”
“Yes!” she yells so loudly it echoes across the field. “At camp!”
The feel of her curls tangled around my fingers and her lips pressing into mine rush through me. The memories are broken and scattered in my head, blending with different moments. I was concussed—of course I don’t remember kissing her. I don’t remember calling Steven sweetie pie either,but apparently, I did.
“Kate, I had a concussion.” I press a palm into my forehead, rubbing the ache growing there. She lets out a trembling sigh and runs her hands through her hair. “Look, I don’t know if me telling you all of this is freaking you out, but I had to, okay?”
“I don’t know, Malcolm…” Her words linger in a whisper so quiet it’s almost swallowed by the wind rustling past her.
“What don’t you know?” I grip the back of my neck and exhale. She does know. She feels the same way, but she’s scared as hell to follow through. I get it. I don’t want to lose her either. Kate would rather risk a little with some stranger on an app than risk everything with me. Our lives are so intertwined. Extracting her from mine would cause me physical pain. And I have a feeling losing me from hers might be worse for her.
“Kate, what scares you?” I break the silence, asking her the same question she asked me at camp.
“I don’t know,” she snips, offense plastering red on her cheeks. “I just want to understand.”
“What else is there to understand?”
“How this can be happening!” She yells it like a statement to her universe, voice cracking slightly. “How someone like you”—she waves a hand in my direction—“can love someone like me!” Pressing her hands to her chest, she looks up at the sky, and I can see the edge of her jaw tremble. When she finally looks back at me, tears are streaming down her face.
“Hey…” I take a step closer as she turns her face away and wipes at her tears. It kills me to see her like this—not believing the good things about herself or that she’s worth loving. The tears slow, and she takes a slow breath, still not looking at me. “Kate, look at me.”
“Why?” her voice cracks as she slowly turns to face me.
“May I?” I hold out my hand, and she takes it. I squeeze, and her shoulders relax, like the small touch relieves the tension that was there. I tug her close to me and wipe her wet cheek with my thumb. “Kate, I’m sorry.”
“For loving me?” A weak laugh flows out of her, and I tug her closer, a reassurance that that is far from what I’m saying.
“Never for that.” I cup her face in my hands and level my gaze with hers. “I’m sorry that people in your life have made you believe you’re hard to love. I really am.” She sniffles but doesn’t look away. “But you have to know…you are not. You, Katherine Stanley, might be the weirdest and most outspoken person in the world, but you are not hard to love.”
“Are you—”
“Ask if I’m sure, I dare you. I have never been so sure of anything in my life.”
“Your whole life?” she asks in disbelief. Gosh, this woman can really get under my skin. “There’s nothing else you’ve been more sure of? Not even the time you took the wrong exit to El Reno, and you were positive you’d find a new way there?” A mischievous glint flashes in her eyes, both irritating and irresistible as she looks at me, challenging me.
Her breath tickles my neck as I close the distance between us completely. “You drive me crazy, Stanley.”
I grip the sides of her face, feeling her cheeks twitch with a smile against my palms. Her body stiffens for a moment when I press up against her. Then, as if a dam of restraint is broken between us, we’re kissing. My hands tangle in her hair, and she grips my suit jacket, both tugging each other closer than humanly possible, like it’s not enough.
Being this close to her, with her lips on mine, isn’t enough.
Everything around me goes still. Quiet. As if the Earth itself is slowing down so I can soak up every part of this. The glide of her strawberry lips against mine, the smoothness of her cheeks against my rough hands, the fit of her delicate body against mine. All of it burns into my brain, wiping out every other pipe dream I’ve had about this moment. They don’t compare.
The muscles in my body practically turn to Jell-O as she wraps herself around me. Something inside both of us releases under the relief of it all, like we’ve been starving in the desert for years and finally found water. I have been starving for her, but something about the wait makes this feel that much more satisfying.
Delayed gratification in a sense. And damn was she worth the wait.
Just when the taste of her is starting to consume me, something cold and wet trickles down my face. Slow at first, then it hits me like a rocket—repeatedly blasting me from every side. I blink at Kate, who is also getting hit. I turn around to see what is happening, getting drenched in the process.
The sprinklers.